Imagine two people are given the same ingredients to prepare a fire and cook a meal that must be ready in one hour.

One uses gas. The other uses coal.

Who is more likely to have the food ready on time? The answer is obvious.

Now imagine the coal is wet. It takes even longer to ignite. More effort. More attention. More frustration.
The problem is not the coal. It is simply not the most efficient fuel for that job.

I think life and careers can work the same way. We all have different gifts, natural abilities, interests, patterns of thinking and ways of learning.

For some things, you are gas.

You catch on quickly.

You have energy for it.

You learn it almost naturally.

You can practice for hours without feeling drained.

You perform with relatively little friction.

For other things, you may be wood, charcoal, or coal. You can still do them – but they require significantly more effort, more time and more energy.

And then there is wet coal: those areas where you keep trying, but everything feels like hard work. Yet sometimes we spend our lives trying to become excellent at our coal, while competing against people whose natural strengths make them gas.

Don’t build your life around proving you can do what drains you. Study yourself. Discover where your natural ability, curiosity, energy and strengths come together.

That is where you may find your gas. Your career shouldn’t only be about asking:

“What can I do?”

Ask:

“What comes alive when I do it?”

Because the goal is not to avoid hard work. The goal is to know where your hard work catches fire.
Find your gas. Build your life around it.

What is the thing you do where the fire seems to light almost by itself?